Germany's Glut of Electricity Causing Prices To Plummet 365
WIth an interesting followup to the recent news that Germany's power production by at least some measures was briefly dominated by solar production, AmiMoJo (196126) writes Germany is headed for its biggest electricity glut since 2011 as new coal-fired plants start and generation of wind and solar energy increases, weighing on power prices that have already dropped for three years. From December capacity will be at 117% of peak demand. The benchmark German electricity contract has slumped 36% since the end of 2010. "The new plants will run at current prices, but they won't cover their costs" said Ricardo Klimaschka, a power trader at Energieunion GmbH. Lower prices "leave a trail of blood in our balance sheet" according to Bernhard Guenther, CFO at RWE, Germany's biggest power producer. Wind and solar's share of installed German power capacity will rise to 42% by next year from 30% in 2010. The share of hard coal and lignite plant capacity will drop to 28% from 32%.
Re:Another misconception bites the dust (Score:4, Interesting)
In what year is it predicted that Germany will generate fewer kWh of power from coal than it did in, say, 2005? Will we have to wait until 2050 or something for this long-promised decrease?
Re:This just illustrates (Score:3, Interesting)
This just illustrates that carbon tax is too low
Ah, looks like we've run into another person who believes that human misery is the way to go. How's the plan for excessively high energy prices working out for various countries anyway? And do you believe that you can build a world on expensive energy, expensive food, and expensive bare necessities without causing massive suffering to people.
Re:This just illustrates (Score:5, Interesting)
That is incorrect. In many countries, such as my own (Finland) you can actually choose which power provider to use.
My bill basically consists of two parts. One comes from utility provider providing power transmission wires to my home (which I cannot choose for obvious reasons) and one comes from the provider of electrical power to the grid (which I can choose from anywhere in Finland).
I live in city of Tampere, and buy electricity from provider in Kouvola (https://www.kssenergia.fi/). The distance between our cities is several hundred kilometers, but this works because electric grid is unified, and what actually happens is that provider feeds a certain amount of energy into the grid, and whatever energy I take out is billed according to our contract. Provider is required to feed this much power (+ certain surplus for transmission) into the grid at its local exchange. This creates competition between electricity generating companies while transmission fees are monitored by government to ensure that they are in line with spending and do not abuse the monopolistic rights (since they are the only provider in the area for obvious reasons).
This system enables healthy competition for power providers without upending utilities.
Re:This just illustrates (Score:5, Interesting)
No. Energy generation is a very difficult thing in that entire grid must stay within certain tolerance levels. We're talking about gigawatts per hour, so your swimming pool would have to be a size of a large lake or two and would obviously not be worth the cost.
They used to pump electricity up into potential energy water storage in some places, but those have been in dire need of upgrades and for some fucked up reason (which is an apt summary of the entire Energiewende really) are not supported and are actually closed down. All while new coal and gas is being massively built up so that they have hot reserve ready to go for the renewables fluctuations.
Re:This just illustrates (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:This just illustrates (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:This just illustrates (Score:4, Interesting)
Interestingly enough, German residential electric rates are up to four times as high as US rates (Hawaii pays about as much as Germany, New England and Alaska half as much, everywhere else considerably cheaper)
Finnish rates, on the other hand, are comparable to New England's rates. In other words, more expensive than anywhere but Alaska and Hawaii.
So, if you're being "gouged", I take it you live in Hawaii? Because otherwise, your "gouged" is probably lower than anyone in Europe is paying....
Re:This just illustrates (Score:5, Interesting)
1. Most people in Germany do not have their own house, but live in rented apartments. They have no possibility to install any kind of power generator, renewable or not.
That is not really true. One of the things that is becoming more common is for the housing corporations to create projects where the renters pay an additional fee for using power from solar panels the corporations install. There are variants when it comes to the type of payment and ownership, but the general construction is quite viable. Basically, renters get to bet that their fees for the solar panels will be lower than what they would pay in electricity costs, feel good about supporting solar and have to do nothing otherwise. The housing corporations can (technically) provide better panels and prices due to the scale advantages.
It's obviously not a panacea, considering that housing corporations could really mess up their choices or try to become rich off of the projects, but in a way it is a much faster way to increase the number of installed solar panels than waiting for home owners to take the plunge.
Re:This just illustrates (Score:5, Interesting)
Some places, even here in the US, have a choice of electrical provider, it is VERY rare, but does happen.
Certain parts of Texas have fully seperated the generation market from distribution. Distribution is run by a monopoly called Oncor, and they get to leech from your bill at a mostly fixed rate. You then sign up for generation with a variety of providers offering various contract terms. When I lived there I locked in a 2yr contract, flat rate at 8.9 cents per Kwh, and tried my hand at bitcoin mining via dirty old coal. But I could have had 100% wind or 100% renewable at even lower rates, but they were seasonal and they tended to have short terms. 3mo then you get dumped on the market again when the 8.9 cent deal isn't available. Longer term renewables ran 11 - 15 cents per Kwh.
This is the system California was trying to set up, but the mistake they made was to not seperate distribution from generation. Now they're stuck with a politicized PUC making decisions that deem 1 Kwh used by a company has higher economic value to the state than 1 Kwh used at my house. So I get a form of rationing by tier, and if I leave my computers on and do too many load of laundry, they start charging me 50 cents a Kwh. Just who get s to keep the difference between that and the actual generation costs is lost on me...
Re:This just illustrates (Score:4, Interesting)
solar is going to be affordable for me to install on my roof (technically it already is today, but due to HOA rules I can't have them
Have you checked with your HOA recently? TX now has a law that regulates what HOAs can demand as far as roof top solar. An HOA cannot simply say "no solar panels allowed". Instead there are guide lines in the law that the HOA will make you follow, such as the panels must follow the roof angle, no tilt panels that follow the sun, panel frames and mounts that blend into the HOA color scheme (probably they will ask for black). Stuff like that. The law isn't perfect, there are loop holes in case the HOA is run by jerks. But if you're willing to go to arbitration it is very likely you will win. I'm in Dallas and installed 20 solar panels (5kW) earlier this month. My HOA was very supportive and changed some of the rules due to my suggestions in order to make the process easier.